


all you sinners stand up sing hallelujah

by rainaftersnowplease



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, fight me, it's smut but I'm too much of a sap for it not to be gentle and loving, look they're safe and happy and in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-28 23:09:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10841403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainaftersnowplease/pseuds/rainaftersnowplease
Summary: Post series finale, some fluffy smut in Laura's childhood bedroom.





	all you sinners stand up sing hallelujah

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Hallelujah" by Panic! at the Disco. It's good.

Her dad is a fucking weirdo.

It all strikes her as a bit seventeenth century, even if she is relegated to the double bed of a foldout sofa rather than a room at the opposite end of a dank castle. She isn’t exactly a nervous suitor, and Laura, if she’s honest, isn’t exactly royalty. Her dad separated them anyway, making up the pullout bed with sheets that smell as though they haven’t seen a guest since the last time Carmilla was hiding in the shadows of a castle while a pretty girl slept within.

She appreciates the gesture. He could have left her with just the couch, and she’d have been grateful; she won’t be sleeping tonight, and the living room is close enough to the front door to make her confident that she’ll at least lay between Laura and whatever might find them. It’s a boon, where the house itself stands: away from major lay lines and faults in the earth both. Rationally, she knows they’ll be safe here, at least for the night. But not everything hellish had disappeared along with her mother’s rage. It had rained tiny frogs for most of their trip away from campus, and there was no way to be sure that anything more sinister hadn’t survived the hell portal’s closing as well.

Of course, now that she doesn’t have the advantage of being undead, Carmilla has to wonder what she’d be able to do should anything of that nature appear. Probably she’d be a slight inconvenience and nothing more, to anything more dangerous than an irritable ghost. She’ll take the front line anyway, because obstinacy was never something she had needed three hundred years to learn.

She wonders too, though, if Laura is happy to be in her own bed again. They don’t talk much about how growing up here had been. Was her room a sanctuary when she lived here? Is coming back like a spelled respite from all the bullshit that’s gone on since she went away to school? Carmilla lays on top of the covers on the foldout and worries at her bottom lip with her teeth. Does Laura prefer her old double bed to the intimate cramp of sharing their singles at Silas?

The clock in the hall tick tocks its way to midnight. Laura’s dad can be heard snoring in his room at the other end of the house, and Carmilla can’t make out Laura’s breathing over his noise and the clock’s. She knows she isn’t asleep, though. Too regularly to be her usual nighttime restlessness, Carmilla can hear her shifting beneath her covers. She imagines Laura stretching her legs out in the slow, careful way she does when she wants to get Carmilla’s attention. It makes her mouth go dry. They haven’t slept apart since their apocalypse-eve makeup.

She’s not quiet anymore. She can’t step so lightly the air barely moves around her, or melt into the shadows where she is unseeable by mortal eyes. She is no longer the predator she once was. She eases off the foldout bed anyway and pads as softly as possible toward the darkened hallway to Laura’s room.

The hardwood floors are cold under her bare feet. Carmilla doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to that. Being warmer than just about everything else around her. The hard cold sends a shiver racketing up her spine, and she has to stop for a second to let the shudder subside.

Stepping into the lightless hallway is another new experience manifested. She can’t see a damn thing. She steps as lightly as she can, and skims her fingers along the right wall as she goes. The first door is the bathroom. Carmilla taps the knob and ticks off the count in her head. The second door is a closet, and not set as deep in the wall as the bathroom door. Another tap on the knob, and it’s one to go.

The third door is Laura’s room. Carmilla is about to reach out for the knob, her fingers so close she can feel the cool brass through the air, when she hears a louder, broken snore from the opposite end of the hall. She freezes, and her heart beats hard and bold in her ears. Out of habit, she tries to pull at the edges of her body to melt into the dark. It doesn’t work, obviously. Carmilla doesn’t move again until Mr. Hollis’s snores even out.

She releases a breath she wasn’t aware of holding. Her lungs burn, a prickly sensation at the back of her throat, and she tries not to suck in her next breath too quickly. Having to breathe is very inconvenient, she thinks. It’s kind of bullshit, actually.

This time, when she reaches for the knob, she gets all the way there. The latch isn’t quite in its home in the jam, so she doesn’t have to twist the knob and risk a squeak. The hinges are silent when she pushes the door open, another boon. Maybe her luck has turned tonight.

Sparse, blue moonlight filters into the room between the drawn curtains on its window. By its ghostly glow, Carmilla can just make out the edges of Laura’s furniture: the sharp edges of a bedside table, the smooth cylinder of a lamp atop it. The rounded ends of her bed. Laura herself is a covered lump atop it. In the silence, her father’s muffled snores seeming more distant now that she’s put the walls of Laura’s room between them and the sound, Carmilla can hear her breathing. It’s too shallow for her to be asleep.

Carmilla takes an easy, small step across the threshold. The floor creaks under her weight, and she sees Laura go still under the covers. She’s scaring her, probably, so she doesn’t try to sneak anymore. She lets her heels hit the floor the rest of the way to the bed, and the muted thumps of her steps announce her approach. She hopes Laura can recognize the cadence, even if only for the breath it’ll give her in the few seconds it takes to get there.

“Carm?” comes Laura’s whispered question when she feels her weight settle atop the covers. 

“Hey, cutie,” Carmilla affirms. Laura answers with a whoosh of relief, and twists her body a quarter turn to look over her shoulder.

“I thought we were passed all this sneaking up on a girl in the middle of the night,” she says. Carmilla can see the upward quirk of her mouth even in the quarter light, and she sucks her own bottom lip between her teeth to mask the smile that creeps its way into her jaw, unbidden.

“What can I say?” she asks. “I guess some undead habits die hard.”

Laura snorts, and claps a hand to her mouth soon after to hide her further laughter. The sound sticks high in Carmilla’s chest and seems to expand her ribs. She smiles wide, breathing out through her teeth to let off the mirth that bubbles in her throat. 

“I think you should leave the puns to me,” Laura says finally, having subdued herself sufficiently to whisper again.

“Do you?” Carmilla challenges. She leans down on her left elbow to bring herself close enough to Laura’s face to feel the heat coming off her cheek. She’s still on top of the comforter, but that doesn’t stop Laura from sucking in a quick breath when Carmilla slides her right hand against the swell of her hip. 

Laura turns, then, the rest of the way onto her back. Carmilla doesn’t keep hold of her hip, instead keeping her hand still so it rests on Laura’s stomach when she’s settled on her back. She flexes her fingers there, and practically luxuriates in the way it makes Laura’s smile widen enough to reveal her teeth in the dark. They’re close enough that she can feel her breathe beneath her, hovering just inches above her upturned face.

“Aren’t you cold?” Laura asks finally, when she doesn’t speak again. Carmilla can feel the words against her lips, so close are they. “It’s, uh, very warm here under the covers.”

It’s as close to an invitation as she ever gets. For all her cavalier attitude about bargaining with gods, Laura is still surprisingly mum about the nitty gritty of secret snuggling in her childhood bedroom. But it’s also all the invitation Carmilla needs. She pulls back just long enough to tug on the top corner of the covers behind her and fold herself beneath the sheets. Laura shuffles closer once they’re together again.

She’s on her other side now, facing Carmilla properly. Unhindered by the comforter, Carmilla can walk her fingers over her side and smooth her palm over the skin of her back, under the old tank top she’s using as a nightshirt. She doesn’t have to pull Laura closer after that; she surges forward on her own, and all Carmilla has to do is part her lips to accept her kiss.

Laura kisses her slowly at first, but neither of them has ever been good at slow. At the end of their first kiss, Laura breathes a contented sigh into her mouth. The feeling sets Carmilla’s heart hammering against her ribs. She presses her fingers into Laura’s side, thumbing the hint of ribs below her breasts and tugging her impossibly closer. 

Laura obliges the sentiment: throws a bare leg over Carmilla’s hip, hooking her knee behind her back. Her hands slide up Carmilla’s neck, before pausing at her jaw. Carmilla smiles wide into their next kiss. She can feel her own heartbeat against Laura’s fingers.

She hopes Laura can feel it kick into overdrive when she slides her tongue into Carmilla’s mouth.

They kiss for what seems to Carmilla both a second and an age, and she doesn’t pull away even when they’re both breathless and gasping. Laura’s hands tangle in her hair, sifting when their lips meet and pulling to bring her back in when they part. Carmilla swipes her tongue along her bottom lip on their next parting, and Laura moans: a soft, low sound that sends heat down Carmilla’s spine and pooling low in her belly.

It’s easy to get lost like this, to fall back into the soft, familiar way they move together. Laura is warm against her, hips rolling into her in a lazy grind, breath hot on her face. Carmilla slips her hand beneath Laura’s shirt again, skimming her fingertips up the soft skin of her stomach. When she hits the subtle bump of her breastbone, she lays her palm flat to the ridge and presses up between her breasts until her fingertips connect with her collarbones. Laura moans her name in response.

“Easy, sweetheart,” Carmilla chides, no honest admonition in the words. 

The air is flash-freeze quiet save the shuffle of the covers and their breathing. Carmilla scrapes the blunt of her nails back down Laura’s front and gets a harder grind of hips in response. Laura’s next kiss is hard, more teeth than lips. She sinks them into Carmilla’s bottom lip and tugs. Carmilla makes a noise so needy she’d swear by never having made it at all, and feels Laura’s smug smile just as she pops her lip free again.

“Can you be quiet?” Laura whispers to her. Her flat palm pushing on her shoulder is all the context Carmilla needs. And honestly she can’t be sure this is entirely a truthful answer but –

“Sure thing,” she says, grinning wide as she can – like a fool, probably. She doesn’t care. She lets Laura guide her down to her back and climb atop her. Carmilla’s hands go to her hips, and she squeezes there when Laura bends to kiss her again.

“You’d better,” she says. It’s domineering, and that sends another stab of heat below Carmilla’s stomach. It’s also imploring: remember where we are, it begs. Carmilla rubs circles into Laura’s hipbones, meaning to be soothing. It earns her a low moan and another roll of hips. 

When Laura opens her eyes again, it’s to stare at Carmilla in the dark, all hooded eyes and open mouth. Her hair is matted on one side and she’s still breathing something just short of heavily. She keeps her gaze downward until Carmilla isn’t sure if she’s not the only thing in the universe. Then she smiles gently, and cups Carmilla’s jaw more gently still. Her hair hangs around her face, curtaining them closed from the silvery moonlight splayed across the bed. Carmilla doesn’t think she’s ever seen anything more beautiful.

The spell doesn’t last: Laura is determined even at the worst of times, and this is certainly not one of them. Her next lean forward has her pressing her lips to Carmilla’s neck. She kisses softly there and then harder, sucking just softly enough not to leave a mark. Carmilla sucks in a shaky breath and bites her lip, but Laura has already moved on: down to her shoulder and then her chest, kissing firmly over her shirt. She sits up on her elbows to watch Laura’s progress. When she presses more kisses down her front, Carmilla curses the fabric of her shirt for being in the way. But then Laura lifts the hem to kiss below her belly button and the thought gets lost. 

Laura settles between her legs before she continues any lower with her mouth. She looks back up at Carmilla then, hooking her fingers into the waistband of her borrowed pajamas. Carmilla lets out a shaky breath, trembling already and they haven’t even started. Laura loops her fingers free to rub at her thighs. The look she gives then – smiling and open and so, so adoring – it slows Carmilla’s racing heart, steadies her uneven breath. She relaxes.

It’s Laura, after all.

“Hips up,” she says once she’s sure Carmilla is ready again. This time she complies, holding herself up off the mattress to let Laura drag her bottoms over her hips and down her legs. They stick at her knees and after that at her ankles, but enough wiggling on her part and even more tugging on Laura’s soon have them stuffed in the covers tucked into the end of the mattress.

Laura settles between her legs again, one hand on her thigh and the other rubbing slow, light circles into her skin just below her belly button. She looks up into Carmilla’s eyes, wets her lips with a slow swipe of her tongue, and delivers a final reminder:

“Be quiet, okay?”

Carmilla nods, throat too dry to do more than croak the words out anyway.

She’s fairly sure she gasps before Laura has finished lowering her head again. Regardless, the first slow, measured swipe of her tongue between her folds turns it to a moan. It’s too loud, but Carmilla can feel Laura’s lips on her, curling into a smile at the sound. She dips her head again, delivering another languid lick from entrance to clit, and it’s too much. Carmilla drops her head back onto the pillow behind her. She pleats her hands through her own hair, gripping hard and biting her lip to keep the next moan in. Laura’s tongue is warm and impossibly soft. Two licks and Carmilla is already a mess before her. 

She’ll find time later to be embarrassed about that. Now, her world narrows to Laura easing her lips around her clit. To the wet sound of her sucking. It steals her breath, has her rolling her hips up into Laura’s face, desperate. Laura takes a breath and spreads another smile against her and sucks again, harder this time and longer, and Carmilla whines above her, the sound high and keening. She presses the heels of her palms to her eyelids, but she doesn’t need the pressure to see stars now.

“Laura,” she pleads, her name short in her mouth like an oath.

And Laura, who has never disappointed her for long, does not disappoint her now. Her fingertips are at her entrance half a heartbeat before they slide home. Once she’s knuckle deep, Laura returns her mouth to its task. She swipes her tongue through Carmilla’s wet folds again to her clit, and Carmilla is not the only one of them who moans low and strained at the back of her throat.

Laura’s fingers are dexterous inside her, twisting and curling until Carmilla has to turn her head and bite down on a loose bit of pillowcase to keep quiet. Her tongue is less precise but so warm, Carmilla swears it’ll leave a mark when she’s done. Every swipe over her clit, every thrust inside her sends something white and hot down her spine.

“Laura,” she says again.

And this time there’s no lost plea hanging onto her name, but a kind of gratitude Carmilla is still surprised to find herself capable of. It’s greedy and worshipping, and Laura knows the sound of it by now. Her fingers thrust deeper, curl harder. She sucks in a deep, measured breath that chills the air around Carmilla’s folds, wet as they are from her mouth and more. Carmilla has just enough time for a shiver to blitz across every inch of her skin before Laura sucks her into her mouth again. Carmilla’s back arches, hips pushing greedily upward.

“Laura.”

But this time, Laura does not meet her plea with firmer touches. Instead, she skims her free hand’s fingertips down Carmilla’s side, slows the fingers inside her to a push and pull almost tidal in their gentle surety. She lifts her mouth from Carmilla’s clit, and the woman beneath her knows what’s coming. That doesn’t change its effect one bit.

“I love you.”

She pushes inside her again, and Carmilla comes apart: hands fisted in her own hair, mouth twisted open in a wide grin. She laughs through her orgasm, delirious and happy. Laura presses smiling kisses onto her inner thighs and waits until Carmilla’s hips have stilled and she’s spent herself onto her open palm.

She eases out of her finally, and Carmilla sighs above her, spent.

“Do you want your pants back?” Laura asks, before she starts the climb back up to the pillows.

Carmilla laughs again, this time in her usual way: low and indulgent. Laura takes that for an answer, shuffling out from between her legs and up the mattress. She presses herself against Carmilla’s side, and hovers there just below her upturned face. When Carmilla does not drop her chin to look at her, too, Laura plants a soft kiss on it instead.

“What a kick,” Carmilla muses. Laura spits out a laugh, the sound embarrassed, and Carmilla can’t resist looking down finally to see her face. She doesn’t find any shame there, though.

No, Laura’s eyes are shining back at her. Her lips and chin glisten in the sparse light, and her mouth is twisted into a grin just two shades short of smug. Carmilla can’t deny she’s earned it.

“Will you go back out there?” Laura asks, unsure and hopeful enough that even had Carmilla the mind to leave, she’d never have the will.

“Not a chance, cupcake,” she says. She drops an arm to hook Laura into her side, and shuffles her shoulders down into the mattress. She’s halfway to sleep, but Laura’s gaze in the chilly dark is enough to keep her floating just above unconscious.

“What?” she asks, opening one tired eye to return the look she’s getting.

Laura smiles and shakes her head and snuggles against her. She’s warm and soft and solid all at once, fitted to Carmilla’s side like she was made for it.

“Nothing,” she starts, and stops. Takes a deep breath, shakes her head against Carmilla’s side, and continues: “I wasn’t sure we’d ever get this.”

“Feeling sappy about doin’ me in your childhood bed, sweetheart?” Carmilla ribs. Laura smacks her stomach lightly, scoffing as she does.

“No, not that,” she says. The smile in her voice tells Carmilla she’s been forgiven. “After everything that happened at school, and with your mom, and with the world almost ending. I was so sure at least one of us would be dead or worse by now.”

She draws a lazy pattern on Carmilla’s stomach with her fingertips. Her tracing lulls Carmilla’s eyelids closer to closed, and flatten her thoughts to how warm Laura is against her and the soft, rhythmic skimming of her fingers. But Laura is expecting an answer, and the obligation keeps Carmilla hovering just north of sleep.

“It’s perfect,” she slurs. 

“Who’s sappy now?” Laura teases her.

“Still you,” Carmilla dismisses.

The last thing she hears before sleep engulfs her is Laura’s indulgent laughter.


End file.
